A Parent Network for ALL!

A Parent Network for ALL!

DIY Keepsakes

Alright, onto the DIY. As requested, I will be teaching you how to make your own DIY keepsakes (or you can make them as ornaments. Let’s get into it!!

You will need:

All purpose flour.

Salt.

Water.

Rolling pin. (or something to roll dough)

Acrylic paint. (Of all colors)

Smaller and larger paintbrushes.

Toothpicks. (Optional)

Drinking straw. (Optional)

Cookie sheet to bake on.

Large mixing bowl.

A baby.

This photo below is what I will be instructing you on how to make.

Here is the recipe I followed. There are many recipes on Pinterest, if you’d like to check there as well.

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 cup of salt

UP TO 1 cup of water

In a large mixing bowl, add in your flour and salt and mix them together. Once you have them combined, slowly add in your water. You can use a fork or spoon to mix the ingredients together in the beginning. As you’re stirring the mixture and adding water, it will begin to form into a doughy consistency. This is what you will want it to do. Once you’ve mixed everything (flour, salt, and water) together, start kneading it with your hands. You should end up with a decent sized ball of dough! If it ends up being too sticky, add a little more flour to your dough. Now, depending on if you want a keepsake or an ornament, that will determine how large a ball of dough you’ll need. For a simple hand ornament, you’ll only need a small ball of dough. To ensure your ornament/keepsake doesn’t stick to the countertop, sprinkle a little bit of flour onto the surface. Roll your ball of dough out into whichever shape you please. Next, hi-jack that baby you need and press their hand generously into the dough. You will likely need someone to hold your wiggle worm as you guide their hand into the dough. Once their hand is placed in the dough, quickly lift their hand straight up so they don’t grab into it.

Note: Older babies who know how to grab will probably be more difficult to get hand prints of. (Cue my daughter.) You can always just use their feet if need be.

If you’re interested in making a keepsake as pictured below, just grab you a bigger ball of dough.

There is no “perfect” way to make ornaments/keepsakes. Any imperfections that may occur are unique and special, so if something goes wrong, no worries!

Once you have your prints in the dough, use a straw, (or something that makes a hole) to make a hole into your dough wherever you desire. This is so if it is an ornament, you will be able to put a string through it. If you’re making a keepsake, disregard the straw. Put your ornaments/keepsakes on a cookie sheet with parchment paper (parchment paper is optional, not needed) and pop them in the oven at 250 degrees. Depending on how thick you’ve made them, they will need 1-2 hours to bake. They will resemble the photos below when they’re fully dry.

You will know they’re ready to take out of the oven once they’re hard to the touch. Be careful when checking, they’re hot! Let them cool for about 20 minutes before handling. Now comes the fun part. If you wish to paint them, you can paint them while they’re still warm. If you don’t want to paint them, that’s fine too! I decided to paint mine, personally. I found tons of designs to use on Pinterest! I will be showing you the snowman fingers I did in this blog.

If you wish to recreate this image below, keep reading to find out how I achieved it!

First, you want to paint your handprint white. Also make part of the background white, as it will appear as snow once we’re done. Let it dry. (Using acrylics, it seemed to dry pretty quickly.) Paint the background any color blue of your choosing.

Once I painted my fingers, I decided to do the buttons on the snowmen. I used the opposite end of the paintbrush to accomplish the buttons. Next, I did the noses. I used a toothpick to achieve the noses, as well as the mouths, eyes, and scarves. To make the hat, paint a small rectangle at the fingertip, and then paint a square on top to finish it off. To make the scarves, all I did was draw a line with a toothpick, then added a sideways V shape on the end of it. To finish it off, I used the opposite end of the paint brush again to make the “snow” falling in the background. Let everything dry, and you’re all done!

Now you have a memory for you and your little one to share every Christmas in the future! I hope you all enjoyed this craft. If you’d be interested in more holiday related crafts, leave me a comment below! I hope you’ve all had a Happy Monday.